


Mercenary of Cold Steel & Fuzzy Bunny Slippers

by Disasternoj



Category: Sunrider (Visual Novel)
Genre: Claude is not tough, Claude not everything has to be lewd, Comedy, Feelings, Fluff, Gen, Leave Icari in peace, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, but now with 50 percent more snark and backstory, canon-compatible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disasternoj/pseuds/Disasternoj
Summary: In which Icari gets cold feet, Chigara gets flustered, and everyone gets a story.This side story takes place immediately following the ambush in the Nomodorn Corridor and the recruitment of Claude, prior to entering the Mnemosyne Abyss. Compatible with canon.





	Mercenary of Cold Steel & Fuzzy Bunny Slippers

[[♫]](http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=NUI2t39xZSA#Kevin_MacLeod_~_As_I_Figure)

“Th-Th-This is ridiculous!” Asaga’s teeth chattered as she frantically toweled her hair. “We’re all gonna turn into p-popsicles!”

“Oooh…” murmured Chigara, eying the showers apprehensively. “I should probably just go check on my repair crew…”

In the midst of repairing the damage from Cullen’s ambush, Midshipman Connors discovered a breach in a critical section of the forward power junction. To avoid overloading the grid while the section was replaced, Engineering had to shut off the power to everything but minimal life support… including the vast majority of the heating. Unexpected delays immediately followed, due to a shortage of spare parts and the unanticipated difficulty of replacing an entire power junction with nothing but handheld lights.

In the two days since then, some of the less hardy members of the crew have fared… poorly.

“Uuuuuu…” A piteous moan came from the corner behind Asaga and Chigara. The pair glanced over to see their newly-acquired “doctor” huddled in the corner of the locker room, cocooned in a blanket swiped from her bunk.

Claude was a mess. Normally composed (and openly flirtatious), she looked as though the abnormal cold had shot her cat and danced on its grave.

Her ordinarily lustrous pink mane hung in limp, matted tangles, her eyes dull with disbelief. “How can this happen to poor Claude?” she whined. “If I don’t get clean, I’ll die! …But if I take a shower, I’ll _die!_ ”

Chigara looked like she empathized with their erstwhile doctor, letting out a nervous little noise. “The water can’t be above 20 degrees Celsius,” she murmured, wringing her hands. “That can cause breathing problems…”

Asaga gave her friend an affectionate glance that clearly said “dork”, and opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the door to a nearby shower cubicle slamming open.

Out stepped their resident mercenary, already fully dressed in her (slightly damp-looking) uniform, a towel over each shoulder, in the process of tying her hair back into its standard lengthy ponytail. Icari’s movements were smooth and practiced, the ravenette seeming to ignore the cold entirely, despite the droplets still slipping from her hair. She shot Claude a superior look, trademark smirk adorning her face. “Heh. Having a little trouble with the cold, are we?”

All three of them openly gaped. Even Asaga, the only one among them to have braved the freezing water, had come out shivering and regretful. Icari, however, seemed singularly unaffected. As usual, Asaga was the first to find her voice. “Wha- how are you not cold _at all?_ ” she demanded, hands falling to her hips in her classic ‘interrogation’ pose. “That water’s basically just ice!”

The smirk only grew. “This is nothing,” Icari countered. “Try living in an abandoned space station for a month. At least _this_ water is clean, above freezing, and not being competed for by a bunch of crazed pirates.” Her expression grew thoughtful for a moment. “The ship I stole off them did have a pretty plush rug, though,” she mused.

As Asaga’s face contorted in disbelief, Claude spoke up again, a slight sparkle returning to her eyes. “Oooh… did you capture any ruggedly handsome pirate men?” She was practically drooling at the thought, despite her ongoing shivers. “All tied up, with that nifty little gun of yours trained on them… you could do anything you wanted to them…”

_“CLAUDE!”_ shouted Asaga and Icari simultaneously. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. Poor Chigara was redder than a PACT cruiser- the three of them could practically see the steam coming out of her ears. “I-I’ll just go check on the repairs!” Chigara squeaked, as she turned tail and fled. She was perfectly happy to seize the excuse to escape- both from Claude and from the looming specter of a freezing shower.

Asaga frowned at Claude and shook her head sternly while Icari frantically denied any such adventures. In the few days since she had been brought on board, Claude’s lack of modesty and general bawdiness had caused no fewer than eight minor incidents, _aside_ from molesting the captain. The Commander was already despairing of reigning her in, and was seriously considering the merits of leaving her on the closest uninhabited rock. Chigara, being the shyest of the pilots, was especially unused to Claude’s particular brand of humor and… speculation. The others put up with her despite the embarrassment her proximity always brought, but their resident genius had resorted to leaving the room whenever Claude got going.

Undeterred by their rebukes (and mischievous smile still in place), Claude looked Icari up and down for a moment, saying, “Or perhaps a nice lady pirate, hmm?” She extracted one arm from her blankets and gestured at Icari’s feet. “Is that where _those_ came from?”

Asaga and Icari both looked down, the latter realizing a moment too late what she was wearing. Icari’s feet were concealed by a set of extremely fuzzy, extremely _pink_ bunny slippers, completely with little floppy ears. They looked more like something Claude would own than the aloof mercenary.

Icari flushed rapidly, entirely abandoning her composure as she began edging towards the doors. She seemed to have realized, far too late, just how much ammo she had handed to Claude with her wardrobe choices. “I-It’s only sensible to have a warmer set of slippers for days like this! It’s not like…” She paused, only to suddenly turn and point at the other exit on the far end of the room, exclaiming, “Look! It’s the Captain!”

Despite the obviousness of the ploy, both of them turned and looked anyway. Claude, being Claude, whipped around with a glimmer in her eye, only to sag in disappointment when there was no one there. Asaga glanced over her shoulder, instinctually drawing the towel tighter over her half-dressed form at the thought of a _man_ being in the room. By the time they looked back, Icari had vanished.

The two slowly turned and looked each other in the eye, near-identical grins spreading across their faces. It was interrogation time.

Plus, it wasn’t like they could let such a clichéd trick go unpunished.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Icari gave them the slip twice more before they finally cornered her back in the pilot bunks. Who knew the mess hall’s trays made such good projectiles?

“All right, all right! If I tell you, will you stop chasing me around the whole damn ship?” Icari hissed, presenting nothing so much as the image of an angry cat. (Claude thought for a moment she could see a set of cat ears flattened atop Icari’s head.) Asaga and Claude nodded and flopped down on the floor, identical sparkles in their eyes. Claude tossed one edge of her bundled blankets over Asaga, who gave her a grateful look.

Icari rolled her eyes one final time before taking a seat on her own bunk. She reached around a corner of the bedframe and retrieved the slippers she had hidden away earlier in the pursuit. Upon closer examination, they seemed fairly worn- the fuzz was uneven, the lining patched and repaired in several places.

[[♫]](http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=MGoHQkwMTy4#Epic_Soul_Factory_-_Tokyo_Lights)

The mercenary sat silently for a moment, considering the soft, overly fluffy slippers in her hands. “It was a job,” she began, eyes still locked on one fuzzy ear. “Just a job like any other. Get in, take out the leader of the local thug group, get out. Simple. Easy. Done it a hundred times before.” Her face closed down into an unreadable mask. “He went down like a sack of potatoes. They all do, once they take a tantō to the back of the neck.”

She didn’t seem to register the slightly queasy look on her audience’s faces as she continued, “I still don’t know how his goons tracked me. Maybe they had more influence in the city than I thought. It doesn’t matter,” she declared, shaking her head. “They found the apartment I was holed up in. Took a little girl and her father hostage to force me out of hiding.”

This time, she did notice the horrified look on Asaga’s face. Icari smiled sadly. “They’re all right, don’t worry.” She paused, taking a deep breath and gathering her thoughts again. “Normally, I would just book it. They weren’t anyone special, and there’s no point in leverage if you can’t find your target.” The mercenary shook her head again, harder than before. “Something about the girl wouldn’t let me run. The ones holding her and her dad had 4mm bullets in their skulls before they even knew I was behind them.” Icari’s expression turned almost predatory. “The rest of them put up a fight, but they barely had any training. Useless muscle,” she scoffed. “The tricky part was keeping the hostages safe. The dad got grazed by a wild shot, so he has a nice scar to show for stories now.”

“Afterwards,” she continued, ignoring the collective sigh her audience let out when it became apparent the family came out mostly unscathed, “the dad insisted I have dinner with them. It was the least he could do, he said. They wouldn’t even have been involved if I had done my job properly.” Regret shone clearly in her eyes. “Anyway… after dinner, the girl came up to me with these.” She hefted the slippers briefly. “Told me they had been her mom’s… before the thugs I took out killed her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Her fingers tightened, forming steep canyons in the fuzz. “Said she wanted me to have them. As thanks for saving the rest of her family.”

Icari realized she was squashing her gift, hands unclenching and coming up to stroke the fluffy ears. “I keep them as a reminder.” She finally looked up at the captivated pilots, trademark smirk finally returning. “They’re also _very_ warm.”

Asaga and Claude were speechless for a moment, before the red-haired “Hero of Justice” shot up off the floor. “That was _awesome!_ You’ve _gotta_ show us some of your fancy fighting moves!” she insisted.

Icari looked bemused by the idea, but shrugged. “As long as you don’t mind having your asses handed to you. Repeatedly,” she challenged. Icari seemed to like the idea of beating up the two of them more and more the longer she thought about it.

“But- _ack!”_ Claude’s protest was cut off as Asaga dragged her to her feet and out the door, following Icari to the training room at the far end of the wing.

As Asaga walked after her, she considered the mercenary in a different light, and she thought…

_Maybe she’s not so bad after all._

**Author's Note:**

> Sunrider fact of the Day: Mnemosyne was the Titan of Memory in Greek mythology. Somewhat interesting, considering where our anachronistic princess is found.
> 
> Icari normally isn’t one to fret over a few innocents killed or put in danger. This is another case of the Agamemnon- which is also a highly appropriate Greek Mythology reference.
> 
> In case of confusion, I would remind readers that Asaga didn’t much take to Icari at first, due to her intended approach to the Versta mission.
> 
> As always, a big thank-you to my betas, Vozw and [Afterados](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5698514/afterados)! Please leave a comment, whether you liked it or hated it, and tell me why! :3


End file.
